The Lamentation
Historical Context
The Master of the Codex of Saint George, an anonymous Italian painter named after his illuminated manuscript in the Vatican, created this emotionally powerful Lamentation around 1330. The Lamentation — showing the mourning over Christ's dead body after the Deposition — became one of the most emotionally charged subjects in Gothic art, encouraging viewers to share in the grief of the Virgin and disciples. Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the panel reflects the Franciscan devotional emphasis on compassionate meditation upon Christ's Passion.
Technical Analysis
Executed in egg tempera on panel with gold ground, the composition arranges the mourning figures around the prostrate body of Christ in a tightly compressed emotional tableau. The expressive gestures and grief-stricken faces reflect awareness of Giotto's revolutionary Lamentation in the Scrovegni Chapel while maintaining the decorative refinement of a skilled miniaturist.
